No response.
No attack, no hail, no nothing. Not even detection by a patrol- either the
Blessed Vengence's strategy of flying in quietly on the dark side of the planet had allowed them to hit The New Order blindsidedly, or else Gash and Xylon were really distracting them at Dantooine; Xarrin didn't care. A soldier didn't worry about grand strategy, or factors he couldn't control- when that first laser blast whizzes past your head, all that @#%$ goes out the window.
For Xarrin, it was a routine to get into that state of mind before battle had even begun. Too often, the soldiers involved in an attack were cut down their first second in battle, by an enemy who had approached with stealth.
Not today.
Not here, where it meant so much.
The former Coruscant police officer stood, hair brushing the short, cramped roof of the Sentinel-Class shuttle's troop transportation compartment. Ground combat was an entirely different breed of war- not as calm or strategic as fleet battles, it was driven purely on gut instinct and pure quick thinking.
And in this battle, there was no fleet coming. No Allegiance-Class Star Destroyer set to hype into system, no cavalry Xarrin could call it. It was all about survival.
"Alright, gentlemen. This is it- it's the chance we've been waiting for. We're about to strike back against the Empire. Remember, no stupid moves, no carelessness. Go with your gut.
"
And no one gets left behind."
Xarrin let those words ring throughout the durasteel comparment's walls, as his men let out a hardy 'hurrah'. Fourty-nine Twi'Leks, one human, and fifty droids, all of whose voices resounded throughout the vessel.
A voice echoed throughout the bay of the shuttle.
'Vessel has reached planet. ETA Shipyard 1: Thirty Seconds.'
"Okay, suit up, boys. Stay sharp. Good luck."
The fifty living beings on board that ship all placed their helmets on their heads, fastenting them and presurizing the atmosphere inside. The droids stood along with them.
'ETA twenty seconds... ten... five... range confirmed. Drop commencing.'
"First division, move in!"
The Fondor assault force was divided into ten squads, all of ten beings, five Panther Battledroids and five Twi'Leks. The first shipyard was to recieve four squads to assault it, and the last two would each be attacked by three apiece.
Fourty men moved to the rear egress hatch of the shuttle, the rest grabbing hold of the stabalizer poles latched onto the walls. With a hiss, the cabin depressurized. Xarrin's voice echoed over the comm.
"Commence landing!"
But instead of the ship itself landing, the egress hatch pulled open soundlessly in space, and the fourty jet-pack equipped soldiers leapt from the ship, down towards the huge, majestically floating shipyard below. Another voice responded over the comm.
'Squad 1... down. All units accounted for.'
'Squad 2's in. All green.'
'Squad 3, on the dock and good to go.'
'Squad 4, landed, locked, and loaded.'
Xarrin nodded and double clicked his comm to signal the close of the shuttle hatch. The intercomm counted down to the next release, which also went off flawlessly. Finally, Xarrin and the other remaining twenty-nine stepped to the door.
'ETA... ten... five... in range.'
"Go, go, go!"
Xarrin jumped from the shuttle's open hatch with a running start, hands reaching up to his booster pack's control handles by his side. With gentle blasts, he eased his way onto the shipyard below, landing on one of the upper durasteel roofs- though, who could tell up or down in the gravity-free vacuum of space. His boot's auto-magnetism caught on, and he and his team stuck.
Unclipping the weld-blaster from his waist, Xarrin activated it and began to saw into the shipyard's outside with it's firey blade. Cutting a small square into it, he retrived the baradium charge from his waist, nodding to the Battledroids and Twi'Leks who were doing the same in a roughly square pattern. Jogging away from the charges with the rest of the team, he knelt down, speaking into his comm.
"Charges ready?"
'Yes sir.'
'All go, sir.'
"Detonate."
With a huge blast of fire about a hundred meters away from Xarrin and his men, and another two on the other orbittal shipyards, an explosion no one could hear ruptured the top of each of the Fondor shipyards.
"Entrance ways carved- proceed to positions of charge detonation and enter shipyards."
